The Silent Wife (Will Trent #10) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,159
handles and wooden ones and this hammer is for framing and that hammer is for drywall and, do you know, there are even YouTube videos that show the best way to knock out someone with a hammer?”
Faith shook her head, pretending like her heart had not dropped into her stomach.
The last week of March. The early morning hour. The hammer.
Callie signaled the bartender for another, telling him, “Bring one for my friend, too.”
Faith tried to stop her.
Callie asked, “Are you off the record or not?”
Faith nodded for the man to bring two drinks.
Callie watched the bartender walk to the other end of the bar.
She said, “He’s got a nice ass.”
Faith didn’t care about the man’s ass. The air had folded in around them. She looked in the mirror. Will was still sitting at the table across the room. He was holding his phone in his hand, but his eyes were on the bar.
Faith asked Callie, “What’s the next thing you remember?”
“I woke up in the woods, of all places.” She took a breath. “Our first date was a picnic on the grounds of the Biltmore. Rod was always clever that way. He knew he couldn’t impress me with a fancy restaurant or private club. He gave me something that money couldn’t buy: homemade sandwiches, chips, paper napkins, plastic cups. He even wrote me a poem. My romantic cowboy.”
She had moved away from that moment in the woods. Faith let her stray.
“The first time Rod hit me, we were a week away from getting married. He knocked the hell out of me. Literally rang my bell.” She stared longingly into the empty glass. “And then he cried like a baby. And it broke my heart. This big, strong cowboy was sobbing with his head in my lap, begging me to forgive him, promising me it would never, ever happen again, and I just …”
Faith listened to her voice trail off. There was a tinge of sadness in her tone. Callie Zanger was a smart woman. She knew the exact point in her life when everything had turned bad.
She glanced at Faith. “You’ve heard this old story before, right? As a police officer?”
Faith nodded.
“It’s so embarrassing how they all work from the same boring, predictable playbook.” She explained. “They cry and you forgive them. Then eventually, they realize that crying isn’t going to work anymore, so they make you feel guilty. And then the guilt stops working and they resort to threats, and before you know it, you’re terrified of leaving and terrified of staying and fifteen years has gone by and …”
Faith couldn’t let her trail off again. “What made you finally leave him?”
“I got pregnant.” She gave a thin smile. “Rod didn’t want children.”
Faith didn’t have to ask what had happened. Callie was right. She had heard this story countless times before.
“It was a blessing, honestly. I couldn’t protect myself. How could I protect a child?”
The bartender made his third appearance. This time, he skipped the hat tip. He put down the two glasses with a practiced twist of his wrists. Faith gathered he had seen Callie in here before. He knew that a double meant a triple. He more than likely knew he would be well compensated for the charade.
Callie told Faith, “Drink up.”
Faith wrapped her hand around the glass. The liquid was cold. She pretended to take a sip.
Callie took in a mouthful. She was two triples in and on the cusp of tipsy. Faith wondered if she’d had something else before coming down to the restaurant. Her eyelids were heavy. She kept chewing the inside of her lip.
“Rod toyed with me during the divorce,” Callie said. “I thought I was losing my mind.”
Faith feigned another sip.
“When we were married, he always checked after me to make sure I put things back where they belonged. If something was out of place—” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. “When I moved out, when I got my own space, I just thought, ‘I’m going to be messy. I’m going to drop my clothes on the floor and leave the milk out and throw caution to the wind.’”
Her laugh sounded like crystal breaking.
“You know what happens when you leave the milk out?” She gave Faith an eye-roll. “I had fifteen years of training. I couldn’t break the neat-freak habit. It made me too nervous. And I like knowing where things are, but suddenly, things were not where they were supposed to be.”